The questions no one asks

Hello All.
In case some of you who read my prior posts wondered, I have not been on here in some time due to a series of events on this site, but for one very appreciable person reaching out to me this last month who saw my prior post, thank you!
I have a lot of questions.
1. Clients, how many of you have varying disabilities, and what challenges on here do you feel you face. If communication is it, some lessons have been learned, and I will get to those throughout the post.
2. Professionals, those who are professionals, answer this. Have you ever had a situation where you met up with someone with a disability, who has been on this site, who has had enough bad experiences, what do you say to them?
3. All together, what is the real root of the problem?
Well, the real root lies with a couple of things.
Firstly, yes, this site has professionals who are paid, as this is their source of income. But, ratings, the ratings systems inflates some egos a bit too much. Lets explain.
If you brag on yourself due to your carma and you suggestively indicate to me that I should know you are safe based on your carma, I am likely to say that is a tentative Bonk.

Here's the reason. The people who write reviews write them based on their own personal experiences, but there are some who review stack, where someone will get all these rants and raves, but you never hear of any constructive feedback.

One issue that is overlooked is that bullying takes on shapes and sizes not known to many because they are not aware of what to look for.

First, being overcritical of someone's nuances without fully understanding them can lead to very difficult times, and if you are new to them it will quickly lose you a potential client.
Secondly, if you are only on the site to make money, but do not care about the welfare of the person you are going to be cuddling with, its likely that that can set off significant red flags.
In my area where I live, which for anyone geographically interested I live 10 minutes east of the Nebraska border, but south of me 25 miles is Nebraska's largest metropolis. That's just south and a tad west. If I go east it spills into a town that connects directly to Omaha going west, and it is also considdered a largely populated area.

Now where I live itself is not. It's a small town, with a lot of gossipers and dramastarters, so its always a good idea to say, not get too close.
Lets talk about why this is important to me.
I am, as some of you all who have taken the time to read my profile know, I am totally blind. I have been blind since birth.
But blindness, is not the only disability that I have, and it sure isn't the worst of them that I have. I have a blend of one extroardinarily rare as in 1 in 100000 people cases rare condition, o by the way, said condition there are no adults documented with as most of the adults who have the simptoms for said condition are judged significantly more than they should be, believe me that is a bad bad deal.
Why is this important to the post? You're about to find out.

Fair note, this is a very canded and very honest review of my experiences so far on here, please know if anyone wants to kinda help me out I'm glad to well, in my case, listen since a computerized voice will be reading your private messages to me.
Professionals, you are admired for doing what you do, and believe me for some of you it's all you got, in a tumultuous time where the cost of just about everything is so high its unknown how anyone could afford just about anything.

However, I have to ask the glowing question. At what point do we stop criticizing each other, using the money as a shield against those different than us, and learn to show the clients that safety is something we all deserve?

Not everything is going to be in a comfort zone for any person client or otherwise, but judging and bullying are wrong no matter what.
Whether it's here locally, or east of me a ways, there have been within a 3 hours drive of me nothing but internal chaos.
We've had either, people who ask about my conditions, only to first be understanding till 2 hours later after i book, to a person telling me to get a therapist. There is no compassion seemingly.

Some of you could say, but, understand we are just here for cuddles, not for your life story. Problem there, is their life story is about their safety and or their medical. Professionals are bound to accomidate reasonably under the ADA, Americans with disabilities act, and in other countries, there may be disability laws for other reasons which must not be avoided.
I had refered someone to this site, as a professional, who wanted to do this, but they were turned away by the sheer lack of compassion and some of the trolling from some parties on this site.

So my theme for today's message is, clients should be entitled to safety the same as the professionals, and it should not be so transactional that if you are not paying, you are shunned, criticized, bullied, trolled, degraded, emotionally abused, manipulated, destroied and hurt all at once by who is supposed to be a professional.

If any of you want to reach out, please know I am open to commentary, but please do not come out on the attack. If you see something i haven't seen yet, do share. If you have not seen it, let me know. Each person has their own experiences, and so no answer is the wrong answer. Just really trying to understand where the problem is here.
The other suggestion I would make is if a person has not been online showing them in the list is probably not a good idea, especially if their last active is like 3 years ago, because those using screen readers sometimes miss that information and well, message people who they realize they will never in their lives hear from.

Just a thought.
maybe one day I will be accepted as a person, my differences will be not something people weaponize, mistreat, judge, criticize, bully, troll, or degrade.

I walk through rooms with the volume turned low Smiling just enough so nobody knows Every compliment feels like a polite little lie They love the version that waves goodbye I’m tired of echoes, tired of the mask Tired of pretending it’s not such a task.

Words to a song I wrote, called, for who I am.

Comments

  • Hey there. I’m really glad you shared this. I can hear how much you’ve been carrying from some of the experiences you’ve had here.

    I can’t speak for everyone on the site, but I can speak for myself. Over the years I’ve worked with people who had different disabilities and medical situations, and honestly some of those ended up being my favorite and most fulfilling sessions. At the end of the day most people are just looking for the same thing ... to feel safe, accepted, and treated like a human being.

    When someone shares things about their health or their needs, to me that’s just part of understanding each other and making sure everyone can feel comfortable and safe.
    I’m really sorry you’ve had people respond with judgment or dismissiveness. Nobody deserves that. Your differences shouldn’t be something people use against you.

    There really are professionals out here who care about the people they work with and who approach this with compassion.

    Just wanted you to know someone read your post and is wishing you better experiences ahead.

    ~Sage

  • Thank you for sharing, and I am sorry about your experiences here. Not a single human being asked to be born, and we don't get to choose our bodies - no one should be bullied or treated poorly for that. It's hard for me to imagine that someone would bully anyone on this website, or any other platform for being blind - so I'm actually curious what the bullying looks like so I can understand it better. I also want to hunt down whomever has treated you so poorly, and slap the shit out of them. Who are these women doing this?

    To answer your question posed to professionals - I have never had an issue with a client with a disability. Like Sage posted, these are some of my favorite people - because they get the struggle of life and I can empathize in my own ways, and I feel honored as a human to be trusted by other vulnerable people. One of my favorite people I've met on this site is a wheel chair user, and he's one of the sweetest and softest men I've ever met. We've even gone on some outings with me pushing him, and you know what - great seating! lol.

    Maybe it's because I'm disabled myself, and there are a lot of us cuddlers on the spectrum who have also lived our lives in judgement of others. I think you must really be reaching out to the wrong people, and I hope you report them each time. I live nowhere near you - but if I did - I think it would be a neat experience to understand more of your world and life perspective while providing a safe and comforting space. I think it's also important to note that even tho people are listed as "professionals" here - that's only because there is a fee involved, no one is certified in any formal training from the site. There are websites where people actually get trained, certified, and have the professional standards for cuddling you're looking for - albeit the prices are typically 3x what you see on this site - because they have formal training.

  • When professionals sign up they agree that they are willing to cuddle 'everybody'. This cannot be enforced absolutely for obvious reasons, but I have seen action taken against professionals who attempted to discriminate against certain groups.

    Cuddle Comfort is technically a British site, and the law here is unequivocal: discrimination on the basis of any of nine 'protected characteristics', which includes disability, is unlawful. The phrase here is that service providers are required to make "reasonable adjustments". I'm not familiar with the Americans with Disabilities Act but I guess it's roughly along the same lines.

    There are professionals who are disabled, and there are many professionals who welcome clients with disabilities. It may be that some professionals feel they are not able to offer a good service to clients with certain disabilities, particularly if these are serious, and I think most people would have some sympathy with that. However, it is unacceptable for a professional to be bullying or judgemental. If it happens, please Report them.

    The OP is correct that Karma is not the be all and end all. It's useful, but it's not the whole story.

    To answer the OP's questions for myself:

    1) I do not have any disabilities per se, but I do have a number of difficulties. When these were relevant I have always mentioned them very early in the conversation with a professional. In most cases, and certainly once I had become an experienced client, I received a good reaction. I always present the problem with the solution: this may happen and if so we can do that.

    2) doesn't apply

    3) I believe that the problem you describe has two roots. One; many professionals especially younger, new professionals, don't really know what they are doing. They expect easy money and are annoyed when things don't turn out like that.

    Two; virtually all professional cuddlers have a history of trauma. The effects of this can have all kinds of consequences with clients, and I suspect in some cases they mean well but then 'bottle it', as we say here. They are scared. They make the booking, then go away and think about it, and then they doubt themselves and cancel the booking. Just a theory but I do happen to know that that kind of thing does happen.

  • edited March 13

    My heart goes out to you and I truly truly empathize. The world is already quite unfair, and it sounds like it has been even more so to you.

    I know a lot of people dont like AI, but its situations like this that make me happy they are getting better because I truly hope advancements in technology help more people with disablities.

    Unfortunately we cant control how people see or treat us, but just know, their actions are not a reflection of you. All beings deserve to be see, heard and understood.

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